


Ethereal

by TerminallySingle



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic!Avengers, I Don't Even Know, Mindfuck, Multi, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:59:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerminallySingle/pseuds/TerminallySingle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laufey wouldn't have accepted to become a puppet in Thanos' game.  Never would have so willingly given him his allegiance- but that was it wasn't it? Farbauti wasn't Laufey. And Thanos made a deal that he just could not resist...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken No More

Broken No More

It was a place far away and lost to time, and yet, it was nowhere near “far away”. It was right there; it was everywhere, surrounding him at this very moment. The uneasy waiting that his beloved talked about for endless hours, that unlimited potential and unexecuted anxiety to create and become something else, something more, was everywhere the red eyes flickered. It took the form of the snow- centuries- old snow- that covered every square inch of their world; and it took the form of another ally of the winter night- the companion that they named the ice, both old and new, that served as their homes and as their constant companion- quite literally an extension of themselves. Winter and his home were more intertwined than his own ¬and his king’s hands once were…before the summer claimed his mate.  
Once he was proud and had a reason to be. Once he wasn’t alone and once he followed instead of leading. Then the summer came. With its heat, and its sunshine, its golden glamour cascading around them and sinking into their souls like some sick waterfall, creeping in under their tough hides like the nightmares he had l¬ong since forgotten. Summer was a dreaded thing. Summer was an evil thing to be feared and hated so long as his kind lived. Yet his hatred of the summertime would continue well beyond the grave- for that was all that the summer stood for. It was nothing but death. There was a time that he relished in the glow of death- enjoying bathing in the warmth of the red life- blood of his enemies. But this was not glorious death that he could boast of. This was something else- it was called heartbreaking death.  
Farbauti grazed his hand over his husband’s old throne; lovingly, longingly, hopefully. He brushed away the snow that collected on the arm rests and the high arched back and when he was done, he allowed his fingertips to explore the intricate carvings on the sharp obsidian.  
Every king since the beginning of their world had left their mark on that piece of rock.  
He felt nothing but an admiration- less respect for the swirling gashes in the stone that represented the royals before he- the Widow- King. Farbauti decided that he would not leave a mark. He would never dare attempt to leave his marking; not when Laufey never had a chance to leave his.  
He stopped at the small space – no larger than a human child’s palm- left for his husband; the space that was supposed to hold the seal of Laufey had been passed to him- but never would he leave a marking of his own. He wasn’t worth remembering, he told his staff when they asked why he did not wish to sign the last remaining marker of their history. Save for the memories of his people –which too had begun to fail and crumble like the spires and the temples that scattered the realm as giant, mass ruins- , and the shining black throne, Jotunheim’s past was lost. Even the era- mage had been taken from them- alongside the Casket of Ancient Winters, in the Last Great War.  
Yet Farbauti could not have cared less about the history of his race and the magical things it once kept from Odin’s ravenous appetite for power. He cared not about any of that- any less than he cared to remember the names of all the constellations that didn’t have some special meaning to them…and nothing had ever had special meaning to him unless it involved a great battle or his forever- mate – his spouse, his everything; he just missed Laufey.  
It was the kind of missing- the kind of longing and wishful thinking that always accompanied heartbreak. It was the kind of heartbreak where everything, everywhere reminded him of Laufey. Yet nothing was more intertwined in his memory with his husband than this fine piece of what- once- was- a- mountain. This throne was where Laufey made fateful decisions with not even a bat of his eye- where he would call Farbauti to his side for centuries and talk about the next battles to be won and new conspiracies to weave. It was where he was at his strongest- as if the feel of the cool surface of the throne against his skin was the last bit of support he needed to be invincible and immortal. Sometimes it was even as if each was an extension of the other in an unbreakable bond…and- sadly- now, that mountain’s- heart was all he had left of his dear, beloved Laufey.  
He smiled to himself as his eyes begun clouding over with sad tears of remembrance. He would have sat here this day; this day of great importance and wicked plots; he would have sat here if he was still alive, if he were still king and not just an asset- nearly forgotten by everyone- everyone but his spouse- who shed tears every day that he had to grow an intricate ice decorative around his temple- to show that he was the Widow- King. Somehow, this crown was supposed to be a symbol of authority, of superiority and ownership, but it would never feel like that. The round was bestowed upon his head during the darkest time in Farbauti’s life, and it was nothing but a painful reminder that he had come into this power because the one he loved had died. The icicle- statuette was nothing but pain- perhaps that was why he willed the ice to have jagged edges anywhere where it touched the skin and for the swirling horns to turn downward and threaten his eyes with their all too- pointed tips- it was because the crown was nothing but a reminder of pain that was disguised as some kind of mark that set him above the rest of his kind, but there was no need to fool himself as though it were a decoration of distinguished honor- it was a burden on his heart, so let it be so on his body as well.  
Always when he was around other souls, he wore his crown. Among commoners, his crown was simple jagged shards frozen together so that they look like a halo of broken glass- yet whenever the light hit them just so, the light would reflect off the bits and spell his lover’s immortal name into the ceiling above him. Sometimes he would lose himself during meetings just admiring the name on the ceiling- no better than a love smitten- Jotun of less than a millennia. It was the only reason why he even wore the crown anymore- besides pure requirement. The name on the ceiling was the once ounce of joy that the crown bestowed upon him- all else was misery. It was when he was alone that he was free to shatter the crown into small pieces and lay in a different kind of misery on his own.  
Today he was to be around some of the nobility of the realms- terrible, conspiring partners in schemes, that they were; and so it was beyond crucial to look regal. His crown was more elongated than usual and had spikes and swirling horns on top of the normal jagged edges. It was supposed to be an inconspicuous and secretive gathering. A quiet place where all the rulers of the realms that conspired against the All- Father would plot against him; where they would all huddle in the dark as sightless and silent creatures and plan his downfall; and where better than “broken, old Jotunheim” to scheme?  
Yes, Jotunheim was very much forgotten: beaten and broken, in fact, through the eye of the All- Father and all of his foolish followers who huddles underneath his shadow. They who plundered any land that Odin sent them after- and never once questioned him. Yet the old fool could not see- or chose not to see- the enemies he had made and was unsuspecting of the great looming threat of an ice- dagger growing from a pair of large, scarred and carved blue hands with black fingernails and matching heart plunging it down into the heart of his kingdom with a sharp- toothed grin playing on their face.  
Oh but how Laufey used to dream about it! How he used to go on about how “one day” could very well be tomorrow or the day after that. How “one day” could be sometime very soon, or it could be very far; either way, it would be worth the wait- even if he never lived to see it happen. How that phrase “one day” would never be uttered again in their realm once the Jotunheim he once knew came back to sights.  
“Broken, old Jotunheim” was very much the perfect name for these ruins that surrounded him every day of his miserable life. In fact, those two words: “broken” and “old” were the perfect way to describe the king of Jotunheim as well. Farbauti had lived thousands of years, but never had he actually felt old until after the death of his mate- when he too became as broken as the kingdom he now ruled and was desperate to escape from. To leave his prison was all he ever wanted. Yet where else could he go? The realm’s ninth- piece was in Asgard.  
Every realm had a ninth- piece: a casket or some other artifact of untold age which within held amazing, unparalleled power that shone a rich blue and challenged the color of the eyes of one Asgardian prince. Each ninth- piece could be used as a key to the Bifrost- a doorway composed of pure dark energy to any one of the other realms and any place in between. The ninth- pieces had unlimited power; which was why Odin was so desperate to gain hold of them all. That was why Odin had declared war on Jotunheim in the first place and took the Casket of Ancient Winters as his booty. For that Casket was Jotunheim’s ninth- piece; just as the Tesseract was Midgard’s.  
Unlimited power to each realm- no wonder Odin wanted them all so much; and Jotunheim’s was stolen. As though all of the people of Jotunheim were a child that did not know or was not worthy of the toy with which they played. And that would make Odin the “wise, old parent” who knew better for the children of Jotunheim- how ironic. If anything, Odin was just some jealous child no wiser than a common babe that just wanted to play with what Jotunheim had.  
Odin wanted what Jotunheim had, and Laufey wanted it back…now. He yearned for the Casket so much! He wanted the feel of power on his fingertips again. Many times his eyes would gloss over and you could almost see the exact moment the familiar cloud would settle on his face and he would be engulfed in an obsessed fever in which he used to plan for ages on how to steal it back from Odin. In times like these, Laufey would need Farbauti the most. Sometimes the frenzy would only last a few moments, other times it would settle in for days at a time and Laufey would eat little and speak even less to anyone but Farbauti. He would ramble on and on for hours at a time about his wicked plans and Farbauti would have no choice but kneel with his head on Laufey’s knee waiting for Laufey to stop speaking for one moment and come up for air and he would beg and plead his king to eat something.  
His frenzies were terrible things; a fever that would settle and drive the king into doing something stupid. Once, he even searched all of Jotunheim for their era- mage to try and get them to build the realm a new Casket by infusing a crystal with their power. Yet those plans died when they searched the entire realm and found naught their era- mage in their own domain, but instead came to the shocking news that the one individual of Jotun- blood, who wielded enough power to create a new doorway, was their own first child. The same runt whose green- speckled and scarlet eyes haunted his dam and sire for weeks; the same child who was born during a war and left in a camp for children –the camp that had been attacked and everyone killed the night of the child’s birth; the sole survivor of that incident; Jotunheim’s one mage for an indefinite amount of time; was the same child that Odin had taken from them along with the Casket. How many times Laufey begged the other realms for if not their era- mages, then the books they had on magic, only to be denied every time because Odin All- Father had taken their collections- vast and small- with the mages themselves, and whisked them away to become decorated members of his court. Many times Farbauti caught Laufey murmuring ancient and broken words into the night, and when he asked as to why his king tried his hand at what he assumed to be sorcery, when he was not meant to have any- as was the decision chosen upon by Yggdrasil herself- Laufey had told him with sad and tired eyes that he tried praying for the first time in eons that the child would return to them to save his dying home. Farbauti came down from his place in the doorway and clutched Laufey in his arms; they didn’t cry, but they definitely fought back tears, as they remembered the child that they so desperately needed and yet were utterly humiliated by. It wasn’t that they hated him- it was just that they were embarrassed by him and yet, so much that they dearly loved depended on him; which only made them even more humiliated by him.  
Many times Farbauti offered that he and a few of their warriors should go to Asgard themselves and retrieve the Casket, so that Laufey could lead Jotunheim into an age of reform and light without the help of a disgraceful runt of a child- for even despite how powerful he was, he was still a thing to be ashamed of, to be locked away from sight and never thought of again. Every time, Laufey smiled and held Farbauti’s face in his hands and kissed his temple, telling him “Silly fool. And what would happen to Jotunheim when she loses a queen; a raving mad lunatic of a queen and a damn good warrior on a suicide mission for a doorway? We will just have to go without. I’d rather be locked here with you, than free to roam all of the nine realms and have no one to travel with.”  
That was when Laufey and he were allowed to be open about their secret love. It did not last very long, but they were the most blissful days that had ever passed him by. He was finally allowed to demonstrate an unrequited love for his king. He was now allowed to love openly. Again, it didn’t last long at all.  
He still has yet to know how it happened, but at some point in their marriage- only days after they promised that they would never have to hide-, Laufey had come home and was never the same again. After that day, he was cold to his spouse in front of other eyes, but in private, it was as if nothing had changed. It stung a bit. To have been seen through clouded- over eyes with too- well hidden love underneath the haze of forbearance, when before it was fiery and open then all- too- obvious passion. It was all gone without warning; and only tolerance took its place when they were surrounded by other people. If not for the glorious moments in which they were alone again, Farbauti would have believed that Laufey didn’t love him anymore. He was just changed; it was back to being in the closet about each other- as it would seem.  
Farbauti never changed though. He was always openly in love with his king. Perhaps too open, for oftentimes, he was called insane or mad, just because he had the emotion. Deep down, he thought, every Frost Giant has that emotion; it’s just that none of them had the courage to show it. So he continued with his “madness” and fell more and more in love to his private Laufey. He would follow him anywhere and do anything that was asked of him. That’s how deeply he loved…and then only for his Laufey to return the emotion as one would share a secret. That must have been how every Jotun expressed love. They only shared it in secret because they were not as daring as Farbauti was.  
That was just what he was. Farbauti was daring and daring alone. He wasn’t the smartest Jotun. He was a warrior, not a strategist. That was Laufey’s job as king and as a spouse as well. Farbauti would just execute the plans Laufey made for them both willingly. He would follow Laufey to the space beyond the realms if Laufey wished him to. He would have even gone so far as to follow his beloved mate to the grave- had the bird not come to him when it did.  
He knelt beside the chair. It was an undignified place to be, yes, but it had been where he had always sat- and there was no use in being ashamed now that the throne was supposedly his- though, in his heart, it would always and only be Laufey’s. Several times- before he was their superior- he was told by his comrades that he looked like a servant or a pet at his master’s feet when he knelt in the soft snow by the throne. Yet that was the truth, was it not? It had always been the truth. He had loved Laufey unquestionably and unconditionally. He was loyal and blind to any fault of his king. He was in love.  
Stupid, blind foolish love, he- the greatest Jotun warrior to have ever lived- was head over heels for his king, his commander, his brother in arms, his husband. The Jotun- people did not love. It was shameful to love. They battled and they rutted, that was all to life for their race. They dared not love.  
But Farbauti did. He loved Laufey more than life itself. And he would have proven that his life mattered not without his dearly beloved- would have admitted to any crime with a death penalty or even done the deed himself if he hadn’t learned that he did not actually have to go on without him.  
Absent- mindedly, he brushed the snow around his feet drawing random swirls as his mind turned back to that day.  
‘I failed him…he- he’s dead because of me.’ Tears ran down his cheeks shamelessly as he knelt at the king’s throne. Choked sobbing echoed all around the room that no one dared enter. Not after a disbelieving Farbauti lashed out at the messenger who dared give condolences to the grieving warrior. He would live, though. The messenger was fast and ran out of the room before Farbauti could give the final blow to end his life. He scrambled out shouting about how the king’s widow had gone raving mad at the news and that no one should disturb the new king. The pitiful excuse of a Frost Giant- whose sole purpose in life was to serve as a messenger- clutched at his broken ribs, his arm limp at his side and blood seeping through every cut that the warrior’s ice- blades made. They would make handsome scars someday; maybe even make him worthy of companionship. Yet he would have none- certainly not if the very attractive Farbauti was ever free of his insanity- bond called “love” to the king. The new king was still very alluring- the closest thing to beauty that the Jotuns could conceive, if not for his unfortunate state of complete and utter madness. Everyone would have wanted Farbauti, and he would have been left alone- were it not for the lick of insanity that the warrior’s mind clutched to as a newborn babe clutches to his dam for the first few days after birth. And it was this madness that caused the king to stay in the throne room for days, never sleeping and never eating. All he did was cry and shout, swear and break anything within his reach- Helbindi and Bylesteir had never been more scared in their lives. Not even they -his only real children- could coax their sire into returning home to them; it would seem that they had become orphans, forgotten and lost and lonely orphan princes who not even the servants cared to help. It was not that Farbauti had completely forgotten about his children, never! He loved them dearly, but he did not love them the way that he loved Laufey. It drove him mad thinking that his children will never see their dam ever again. That he would have to wear the crown and bear the burden that once adorned the temple and crinkled the brow of his departed lover. It had been three weeks into his own personal Helheim, when fortune smiled on him and brought him either an angel with ebony- black wings, or a demon with an irrefutable deal to make. He came long after the light star had fallen behind the frozen horizon of the Great Sea. He glided in on a biting wind that came from nowhere, the accompanying blizzard outside that too came from nowhere, roaring fiercely and indistinct. The bird announced his arrival by sounding his high pitched screech and upset the Frost Giant who leaned against the dark shadows- his skin making him nearly impossible to distinguish from the darkness. Not once did Farbauti question the purple hue of the feathers on the foreign bird; even if it was bird that had no business in Jotunheim, much less any business disturbing the grieving widower. He scowled from his place against the shattered ice- panel that used to be a wall and turned to face the pest, ice- daggers at the ready, when the bird landed on the black stone chair- his lover’s chair. Astonished at the audacity of the stupid fowl he threw his knives, all of which stopped mid- flight within two feet from the bird. He gasped at the horror…He just nearly killed a mage in disguise. A very powerful mage too; to be able to control his powers outside of his natural form is the mark of a very advanced sorcerer. This mage could kill him without every showing his face if he so pleased. It wasn’t as though he regretted his actions, the mage did after all land his tail feathers where they had no business, but Farbauti could not help but be a little frightened at all that power locked inside one small fowl- when he himself felt that he had none. It was then that the bird smiled at him- a haughty air to the malicious grin that could make his blood run cold. And the bird was enfolded in an eerily familiar green light and changed to the one known as Thanos.  
Since then, Thanos has been a frequent visitor to the palace in which Farbauti stayed- it was the only palace that hadn’t been completely destroyed, so they had no choice but to inhabit its ghost- like corridors. The palace was home to many dozens of Jotuns: the royal family, some nobility, and of course, their many, many servants; outside there was a town where other Jotuns lived, and despite how many eyes could at any moment peer into the wing in which they always met, Thanos had never once been detected- no matter how big of an entrance he presumed when he arrived- and it was all because, as he boasted, he stole the magic from Jotunheim’s own era- mage, who doubled as Farbauti’s own firstborn son, as well. When asked why he came to Jotunheim and what he wanted, Thanos had merely replied with another smirk, “I want to repay a debt.”  
Laufey would have sent him on his way immediately. He would have waved his hand in dismissal and scoffed at the very idea of him being a pawn in someone else’s game- being as proud as he was, as they both were… or used to be. Yet Farbauti was curious, and so he continued asking his questions and, having been properly intimidated by the audacity of the mysterious stranger clad in armor, was about to send Thanos on his way- saying that the amount of treachery was too great a risk to take for the fragile state of his people- when Thanos cast an image that finalized the deal.  
He promised Farbauti that he would return to him the one who had been taken from him, if he helped him with this scheme. If Jotunheim pledged their allegiance to The Cause, they would receive their lost king- and he could step down from his prison to receive back into his arms the one that he was proclaimed insane for loving.  
Farbauti just couldn’t refuse the chance to be with Laufey again. Time had been stolen from them, and this stranger had promised to steal it back for them; in exchange for his soldiers- it was a deal that no king would have taken, but Farbauti was not just any king. He was the Widow- King; and he was desperate to leave his title before Helbindi and Bylesteir came of age.  
And so, there they were; Farbauti and all of Jotunheim became just another pawn- piece in the grand and horrible game between Thanos, Odin, and The Avengers.  
And even despite their inferior ranking, Farbauti was a proud Jotun once again.  
So he stood up from his place on the floor, kicked the snow on which he doodled back into its shapeless form and went to go and prepare himself for the other conspirator’s arrival- but never mind them, for he was going to look his best solely for the arrival of Laufey.  
He dressed in the finest of Great White Bear furs he owned and he pressed a charcoal stencil along every jagged scar and marking that covered him; he ordered the servants to clean the entire palace: to brush away the snow and to replenish the ice that he himself had broken long ago. They must look their very best. For “Broken, old Jotunheim” they would be no more, not if this battle was won.  
Today, he even went so far as to braid his dark mane. Usually, the long dark wall that cascaded down his back was left in its untamed state and just pushed out of his face so that he could look dignified and intimidating all at once against his fellow connivers. Yet today was no ordinary day; today was the last day of plotting until Thanos made the first move against his opponents. Today, with the forces finally moving, Thanos’ stolen magic could be focused on returning Laufey fully- instead of having to conjure them all to one place and shroud them from Heimdall’s view. Today, he could focus on his promise to Farbauti, and Laufey’s sight would be returned to him. The next time, his hearing; the next his voice, until he could be restored as the flesh and blood king he was before.  
He had to look his best. He craned his head to peer into the obsidian seat of the hard throne and saw his reflection. Many times Thanos had told him that his son had grown to look like him- obviously, he had meant the first born, for Thanos had never lain eyes upon his other two boys- , and many times Farbauti cringed in disgust and instinctually, and absent- mindedly, forged weapons from the frost within his own heart; the frost that was born of the acid resentment towards the Asgardian.  
The crown slipped from his head and the thing broke into several shards on the seat- awakening him from his half- dazed state. He brushed the icicles away and saw his hands. Today was no different, apparently. For the ice daggers began to grow from his fingernails before he could stop them. At the very thought of that traitorous runt he seemed to grow claws. After a moment of pondering, he hesitated in destroying them and decided he would leave them as a kind of adornment; there was no way in Helheim that he wanted to appear weak in front of the other conspirators.  
No one had arrived quite yet. They were to gather when neither the light star nor the dark star was in sight; for it was then when Heimdall’s gaze into Jotunheim was at its weakest- permitting them only a few minutes to arrive undetected.  
Farbauti grew restless. Anticipation began to claw at the hour like some wretched and agitated beast begging for escape from his cage. He walked towards one of the many draping white furs that fell along the walls and pushed it aside to gaze through the large, gaping hole to search for the light star- he didn’t find it.  
It was time.  
Slowly, he strode towards the throne and sat down as proud as he could. A new crown of jagged ice that looked like claws and fangs and thorns appeared on his head; it was identical to the one that once framed his lover’s temple. If Farbauti was to look like a king, he was going to look like the greatest one of all.  
He straightened up and raised his chin; they should be here any moment now, he thought to himself.  
And once the thought passed through his mind, electricity started crackling no more than ten feet away from the King’s Throne, a purple- black swirling mist appeared at the center of the electric storm and stars from a realm unbeknownst to him shone through the portal. It all drained suddenly away, and then blasted a surge of energy that sent the icicles on the ceiling to shiver and the crow flew through- the portal dying suddenly behind him. Thanos kneeled at the base of the throne in his half- bird form and changed to his true form seconds after a rippling wave of magic crashed all around him. Farbauti had grown tired of Thanos’ boasting of his large expanse of stolen power, and would rather that he stopped draining himself with his unnecessary displays of showmanship and give his lover sight already.  
“Good Farbauti- king, you outshine even the twin- suns of Asgard with merely the bright red of your eyes,” said Thanos. He was mocking him, of course. Any second now he would expect Farbauti to step down from the throne of Laufey- king and allow Thanos to sit there instead.  
“And you, Thanos, have more power than anyone in all of these nine cursed realms- with just the blink of an eye or a faint twitch of your finger, you could turn Asgard’s suns and my own ‘radiance’ dark. You need only think the command and I shall happily oblige; for I am at your service.” The last sentence was a part of the oath sworn to Thanos. It just boasted his superiority over them all.  
Within moments, all of the other faceless followers came to the meeting. Again, another showmanship of Thanos’ expanse of power, for then no one could tell who the others were and perhaps tell Odin of their plans. The cloud- like figures that were his fellow conspirators were all the same size and were each a maroon- like color, with what seemed to be hoods shrouding over what would be their faces. They were still for a moment, and then the throne- room faded away and Farbauti found he was now standing with his own maroon hooded- cloak in a large room with cold concrete floors and a single light on the ceiling. The other conspirators walked to their places and sat in a circle, and Farbauti was obliged to do the same.  
Farbauti didn’t pay attention throughout the meeting. He had already memorized every aspect of it and was more than ready to send the first of his men in. Thanos need only give the word ‘and he would happily oblige.’  
The gathering passed as they always did. No words but Thanos’ and the jumbled agreements of his followers, but Farbauti paid no attention to it at all. He merely sat on his legs with his hands on his knees in the formation that they always took around Thanos’ feet. His head was bowed down even if he knew that the others couldn’t see him. He was focusing on one thing and one thing only.  
Anticipation and restlessness dug its claws deeper and deeper into his heart and he nearly wrung everyone’s neck for taking so long with this infernal meeting.  
He just wanted to be with Laufey one more time; and these other meaningless people dared delay his reunion with the love of his life?  
Eventually the meeting ended- though the people remained- and Farbauti hurriedly gave the one worded command to his messengers and watched them usher out the door with a message that would send everything into motion; he knew that Thanos was using his anticipation as a way to get him to do what he wanted even faster, but he cared not about his pride tonight, he just wanted to look at his spouse again, and for once be seen as well since the day that Laufey was taken from him.  
Farbauti was a proud warrior. That was true. He never begged anything of anyone- he would rather die than be left at the mercy of another.  
Yet when Thanos dismissed the others with a simple wave of his hand and they all disappeared in a wisp of black mist and he proceeded to walk towards the window, collecting his long cloak around his shoulders and lifting his hands high above his head- preparing to call out the incantation that would change him to his raven- form and let him leave, Farbauti’s pride was forgotten and he whimpered his discontent that Thanos would so easily forget that he made a promise he did not intend to keep, as it would seem.  
Thanos ignored the small sound of protest and was halfway through the spell when Farbauti stumbled to his feet and outstretched his hand “Sir! Please, do not take leave…you- you promised me something today, my liege, and I’d quite like to see my husband…-if you would be so kind to reward your humble servant, sire.” His words were sad. The way they whined for Thanos to give him what was due him. Yet he cared not for his pride today; not right now. He deserved to see his king once more. He had been loyal to Thanos and all he asked was for him to raise the dead- a simple task given the “great power” that he had often boasted about.  
Thanos sighed and lowered his hands to his sides. “Enough of your sniveling: you do so disgust me, widow.” He let out an exasperated huff of breath and then continued, “Yet I do suppose you aren’t the most useless member of my legion, so I suppose you may have your prize.”  
An all- too- familiar fog of the palest blue rolled in from his fingertips and out stepped a not- much darker blue figure from the waves of mist.  
Farbauti never grew accustomed to seeing his love such a sickly shade of pale blue. He was no longer the deep hue he once was -the same tone that possessed the depths of the great seas-, but was instead some sick glowing shade. Besides the sickly tone of his hide, Laufey looked the same; there was no denying that even when he shone like the Casket, he was still very much the distinguished and proud Jotun that Farbauti fell in love with so many moons ago.  
The eyes- who once were a muted shade of red, a sign of Laufey’s blindness- were growing brighter and brighter every step the half- form took towards him, until, they were again like the burning embers that thrived within the wildfires of Helheim that he remembered.  
Laufey could see him, at long last.  
He smiled and tears clawed their way to the surface; he rushed to his love like he should have the day that he was taken from him. He still felt guilty about it- the pang never left of not having been there the day that their first child tricked them all- but now, it was nearly gone, for he had been reunited with the only one in all of the nine realms that made him feel as if he were not insane, but perfect in every way.  
He couldn’t touch him- that he knew, not until he had served Thanos in every way he and the people of Jotunheim could, but he still ran to him and took the misty image in his arms and embraced what would be Laufey’s body if he had one. Many times, he had run his finger accidentally through Laufey, and although he could not feel anything, and probably did not even know that such a thing had occurred, Farbauti had felt embarrassed, and flushed whenever he did that. So he had practiced long and hard- trying to skim his fingertips where flesh ought to be- he had now learned how not to accidentally penetrate the image. They enfolded themselves in an unsubstantial embrace, yet somehow, it still felt like home in each other’s arms.  
Laufey couldn’t hear him, but he spoke anyway. He spoke for hours and hours about everything. He told Laufey about the children and the kingdom, how everyone made him to be insane and how he didn’t care because he was still very much in love. Laufey didn’t say anything- couldn’t say anything even if he wanted to. He just watched Farbauti’s lips move and his eyes tear up- until eventually he couldn’t help his own tears from falling.  
Farbauti stopped short when he saw the glimmer on Laufey’s cheek, it sparkled and shone like a star- yet it stung like an Alfheimian poisoned blade. So, in a vain attempt at comforting his husband and himself, he lifted a hand and pressed it to the place where Laufey’s neck would have been and slowly moved his temple closer to Laufey’s and Laufey- recognizing the motion- mirrored the action so that their foreheads would have been pressed together- had Laufey actually been made of flesh and bone instead of mist and sorcery. “Do not cry, my darling. We are together at last,” he said. Yet that did not stop either of them from letting the tears fall. They were together at last, and forever more.  
The day- star was rising when they realized that it was time for Laufey to take leave. Thanos had long since left, but he could still summon Laufey from wherever he was- that was how much power he had within him.  
Laufey suddenly turned his head towards the window- as though he heard someone calling, someone who’s call was silent to Farbauti’s ears- and he pressed his ghost lips to Farbauti’s temple and between them a silent “I’ll be back,” and an “ I love you” were exchanged. Laufey got up walked into the furs that draped the wall, and he was gone.  
“I love you more,” whispered Farbauti once the ghost had left. And he fell into a deep sleep where he was- curled up on the floor, still wearing all of his jewels and furs, and despite the harsh stone of the floor, it was the best rest he could remember ever having.  
 


	2. They're Just Sleeping

They’re Just Asleep

The lights danced all over the room. Flickering flames toyed with the gleaming gold walls like some illustrious dance that just went on for centuries without a break- save for when the sunlight shone through and melted the dance partners into the past, so that it may have a chance to illuminate the Asgardian world.

 

Despite all the glamour of the room in which they stood- despite all of the golden light that ought to radiate cheer and comfort, the room was filled with unease. The haze of sad confused and unsure feelings had set in and held them both like a cage would hold its imprisoned…like a cage would hold a hawk and a tank would hold captive a spider.  
They stared at the other two in the room who were being held captive- though they did not know that they were prisoners. Neither did they even have the chance to know how their being imprisoned had also shackled and chained everyone who loved them. It felt like drowning when you lose someone you love, it was impossible to imagine how hard it would be to be unmade entirely.

 

He knew what it was like to be briefly unmade. He was acquainted with the sinking feeling of having all of your morals shatter in an instant and the feeling of having your mind cloud over and not even be able to breathe because you were inside yourself battling your innermost desires and this thing that was not you- he was no stranger to badly losing that fight and unwillingly, and yet willingly, blend into this new creature and be lost within the facade.

 

Yet even when he was lost to the one who was not he, he still had some clue as to who he really was. He could recall having seen people before, and he knew his story and the stories that he heard and those that did not belong to him. Inside, he was still very much the same man that they tried blending away into the background- it was just seeing everything through a different perspective. Like from having seen everything in blacks and whites and grays your entire life, to have suddenly changed into seeing color- and that color was red.

 

Yet to be unmade completely was something else entirely. To have no idea of who you were and what you left behind was unimaginable- and frankly, despicable- despite how much the old man would argue they deserved it.

 

“Are you sure about this?” Natasha bit her thumbnail and turned to her husband, worry framing her entire face. Her eyebrows were nearly drawn together and her brow crinkled. Her blue eyes –which were usually constant pools of confident knowledge and the accompanying sarcasm and charm-, had changed into those of a scared and unsure child. Dark circles began forming around her eyes and her waves of red hair started falling unceremoniously onto her face. Clint sighed. He hated seeing her this way. She was the same strong woman he fell in love with all those years ago, and for her to be so worried was both heartbreaking and unnerving.

 

He tugged her into his arms and clutched her tightly; unable to stare at the two prisoners anymore. Tears started welling in his eyes, but he couldn’t let her see that. He had to be strong for them both right now. “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” he murmured into her red curls.

 

A small smile tugged at her lips and he felt it through his shirt. It’s been a long time that she’s smiled, and he couldn’t help but smile inside, - expectant of the sardonic reply that was soon to fill the air. “I’m a spy. Of course I don’t want you to tell me the truth.” He smiled. It was nice to see a small glimmer of his wife again…but it disappeared almost instantly. He almost felt guilty for smiling when they couldn’t smile with him.

 

Clint doesn’t feel guilty about many things. It was his job not to feel sorry, ever. Inside, he had hoped it would be like when he made a different call on a specific mission all those years ago in Saint Petersburg, and Moscow, and Budapest, and Lima, and Bangkok, and in Manila as well. When he took a gamble on a certain Russian assassin named Romanoff who he had chased all over the world just to kill for an assignment and ended up falling in love with. He had hoped that it would be something like when he fell for the assassin who turned out to be the love of his life and the mother of his children; his two gorgeous little girls. He had hoped that they would all come out better from this…experience. Yet he would have to take the All- Father’s word on it for now.

 

Even if he didn’t agree with the man, he couldn’t very well disagree with the awesome power that he held. He just had to pretend that he understood what the old man was doing. He had to fake that he agreed and that he had faith in this so called “plan” of the Asgardian’s.

 

“Clint? Are we doing the right thing?” Natasha’s voice was lowered to a murmur, barely audible even despite the resounding echo of the room. “Not fighting the All- Father on this. They didn’t even know what they were doing! And what does the All- Father know anyway? He banished one kid for going to a different realm and threw the other into deep space for no real reason!”

 

Clint tried to open his mouth but Natasha interrupted him. She always rambled when she was scared, and that was a very rare thing.  
“- Okay, so he did try to kill an entire race, but what else did he expect? He had just found out he was adopted and never meant to be a king after centuries of wishing and praying and practicing. I’d probably do the same if I were in his shoes. Again, it’s no reason to have thrown the poor guy into some freak wormhole!”

 

“Would you rather he flung them into deep space?” He asked playfully. But there was no way to make play with things like this and he could feel her scowl and glower through his shirt and in his soul.

 

They had committed a serious crime to the laws of Asgard, and Odin demanded recompense for the damage they caused- despite how oblivious they were to the consequences of their actions and how they had been fooled the entire time.

 

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Her voice rumbled with pent- up aggression and unexpressed anger; typical that a master assassin would go through the stage known as “anger” first when dealing with the seven stages of grief. He would have to coo her down to a calmer state, or else she might do something foolhardy, and land them in either a similar- or much worse state than the other two in the room.

 

“I know. It’s hard for me too.” He patted her head and ran his fingers through her hair. This time, Clint didn’t fight the tears. He let them roll down and silently land atop his wife’s red curls. He felt his shirt getting warm; she must have been crying too.

 

She pushed away first and avoided his gaze, burying her face behind a curtain of flaming locks and the sleeve of her uniform as she smeared away her years- obviously horrified and humiliated that she cried over something that was supposed to be trivial and temporary.

 

He reached out and tucked a curled finger underneath chin. He moved her head to that he could stare into those eyes and perhaps get lost in them and forget everything that had occurred as of late. They had become swollen and puffy on top of the black tiredness that they had already acquired. Again, her eye brows furrowed together and she rested her forehead against his beating heart- seeking comfort and finding none.

 

As he held on to his wife, he let his mind wander. Sometimes, when he went undercover, he had to tell long- winded lies and make his subjects believe with ever fiber of their being that he was being honest. It was part of the job to be convincing when playing a part, so he tried constructing his own little mistruth to ease his pain.  
They’re just asleep. They’ll be up in the morning; like they always are. I’ll make pancakes and we’ll all sit down and watch one of their annoying movies, just like any day. They’re just sleeping…

 

Clint sighed as he realized that he couldn’t keep lying to himself. The morning will come and nothing will have changed. They’ll still be asleep and nothing they could do will wake them. Not the promising aromas of food from the kitchen or the blast of Tony’s music; nothing could wake them until it was time for them to wake up again and take their place. Once they found what they were sent to look for.

 

Who knows how long they stood there just standing and hugging each other. Neither of them finding comfort against the sorrow that cast its terrifying shadow across their hearts. There was no way to help them or the other two. They would just have to wait around and hope that they would make it out of this. Yet, as assassins, sometimes it gets hard to hope for the best. So Clint tried lying one more time.

 

They’re just sleeping…  
 


	3. Going Under

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> surgery isn't fun on under normal circumstances- now add a pain in the ass little girl, a sorry man with surreal eyes, and a whole world of hallucination... and little Freddy is about to have what could be the time of her life or the thing that leaves her in an insane asylum; either way, all she has to blame is this girl who shouldn't- doesn't even exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tell me if you guys have trouble telling what's inside freddy's head and what's actually going on around her, i apologize that i'm still learning the ropes to the whole 'writing a fic and actually having the balls to post it somewhere' thing

Going Under

“Now, look, Freddy? Is it?” She didn’t even wait for me to respond. The overly- perky nurse just crammed the mask on my face and hit my nose too- just for fun. I winced in pain as her pale hand crashed against my poor unsuspecting face. Great, another thing you guys are going to have to fix. As if getting rid of this ache inside me wasn’t enough, no. You had to break my nose too! She failed to register that I was grimacing because of something she had done and must have assumed that I was unsure of the operation itself, for before too long, a quick flash of concern crossed her ethereal features and her honey- brown eyes turned dark for a moment before she started trying to soothe me into the medication’s warm embrace. Her cool hand found my forehead and pushed back my dark red bangs- the same way my father used to…before he got the job that took him away from me. “You won’t feel a thing. This is just going to put you to sleep and when you wake up, you’ll be all better and wouldn’t have felt an ounce of pain. Sound good?” She gave me a toothy grin and her entire face brightened up- everything, save for her eyes. Her eyes were still a little bit sad and searching for some sign of happiness or reassurance from me. I smiled back at the fiery bottle- red head, not because I felt any better, but because I thought it would calm her down.

 

She brightened up a bit when I returned her smile. She stopped stroking my hair and turned away to continue attending the medicine drip. I think she kept on telling me about how I’d be okay and how I wasn’t going to feel anything, but I didn’t really listen. All I heard was her rambling on and on and it was getting very annoying, really quickly. Under normal circumstances, the way she tried cooing me to calm down after having probably broken my nose with that mask would have infuriated me and I would have only had to say some sassy comment to get her to shut up and my nose would be avenged. It was my first surgery and to talk to me like I’m a toddler doesn’t exactly calm me down.

 

But perhaps it was because these drugs were really effective and because she was really good at faking that she cared about me, I don’t know. All I do know is that I was calm and anxious, scared and hopeful; alone, but definitely ready to begin the surgery, and after, my life. I hadn’t even enough time to think about what life would be like without this ever- present pain before I felt my eyes droop closed and I fell asleep.

 

The next thing I knew I was lying down on something extremely soft and staring up at a blindingly white ceiling that hadn’t been there when I was going under. I sat up as fast as I possibly could and I couldn’t see anything- nothing but a white room- whose measures and I could never be able to tell. The room looked like it could go one for miles in every direction and be nowhere near ending even then- it was all impersonally white and had nothing to it; no scents filled the air, no feelings of unease or discomfort or home… just, nothing. I must be dreaming. Slowly, I rose to my feet and roamed the place- trying to find something, anything to entertain me in my dream- state until the surgeons were done doing their work and the heavy curtain of drugs and medications would be lifted, taking the pain with it, and I could reenter the world a new Freddy.

 

I always wanted to be a doctor. I always wanted to help people who had problems with their bodies. I always wanted to cure people and to send them home brand- new and as healthy as a horse. The same way the surgeons back home where curing my body and ridding me of a terrible ache that is as much a part of me as my hair or eye color. I wonder how they must feel everyday; going home, having saved a few dozen lives every day, being able to say that ‘Daddy will make it to dinner tonight, and he’s going to be as good as new.’ Being able to tell the stories of how their patient’s eyes brightened up immediately after they heard that they were cured, or the way that their family started crying tears of joy because they were going to be a whole family by the time dinner rolled around, and were going to stay that way for a very long time. I was lost to a crashing wave of imagination; hoping, waiting, longing for the days that I could put on the coat and hang the stethoscope around my neck and start making a difference in the world.

 

It’s impossible to know how long I went on walking with my head stuck in the clouds, with my eyes roaming around aimlessly, not really looking at anything. That was when I stepped on something; something solid and kind of weirdly shaped; something that I would not much later learn to be another person’s hand.

 

She let out a blood- curdling screech and that was when it fully registered that someone’s hand was underneath my foot. She was the one thing in the entire room that I couldn’t step through- how could I not have found her sooner?

 

The girl whipped up from her place on the floor, a lightning- fast dark streak, massaging her hand where my sneaker had made its impression. It was red and I could see the diamond- shaped pattern starting to take shape on her abnormally pale skin. Is there no sun in my fantasy world? Why is she so pale? She could practically disappear into the walls! If not for her hair, I wouldn’t be able to distinguish her from the ground underneath my feet or the never- ending wall across from me. “Ouch! Don’t you look where you’re going? Geez, you’d think that since I’m the only other person here you’d have a little more respect than trying to change my hand from a regular appendage thing into a pancake!” She yelled at me in one breath and I could see her cheeks flush with a slight pink from the unimaginable amount of rage that was quickly accumulating in her tiny body. She was skinny and short for her age, and I couldn’t believe that she even existed- the girl was as thin as air and was just as easily lost against the wall.

 

So, she doesn’t breathe or go into the sunlight…Mother of God, she’s a vampire. Why am I dreaming of vampires? I thought I was past this stage of my life! Last time I ever watch one of my sister’s movies…ever. So long as I live, I will never watch a popular movie just to watch a popular movie and understand the stupid ramblings of my sister and her friends. I had to shake myself out of my internal rambling. That doesn’t usually happen. “Look I am so sorry! I really, truly am, I just didn’t see you there!”

 

She rolled her big eyes of every shade of brown there was and raised a slender hand to get me to stop talking, “Look, I don’t care if you saw or didn’t see me. The point is, my hand is hemorrhaging internally and I am in an extreme amount of pain. But I can’t reap my unholy vengeance on you until after you do whatever you dreamers do here. All I do know is that we ought to get going now, or else someone is going to chew my ass off and murder me for losing a first timer in a place that is supposed to be completely safe and impossible to get lost in. Under normal circumstances, I am totally okay with proving the impossible possible, but when Calliope gets pissed off, I would not want to be in my own shoes- or err…feet. I can’t remember where I put my shoes. Hey! I did prove the impossible to get lost in this place thing wrong after all!” Good Lord, didn’t this vampire child breathe? I wondered as she laughed a loud and only half- genuine laugh. It was deep and it was earthy- but it sounded a little forced as well- as though it has been years since she last laughed. She admired her bare feet for a while- obviously proud of her accomplishment, when suddenly she turned up with a more serious look on her face. “Speaking of ‘this place’, can we please get a move on now? If we don’t get going soon-”

 

“Going? Going where?” I wasn’t too keen on following some strange little child who didn’t seem to need air when she talked just anywhere, and she didn’t seem too happy about being interrupted. She scowled for a bit and answered with her tiny voice dripping in sardonic and condescending acid, “Well, obviously, I’m taking you to the hall.” She rolled her eyes like I just asked what color the sky was and mumbled something that was completely inaudible to me- even if she was the only other person around.

 

I ignored her indiscreet displeasure at me asking questions that would have been considered stupid and inquired one more time. “There’s a hall?” I asked, and once again a scowl took over her features.

 

“Well, yeah, don’t you see it?” She gestured with one long swoop of her skinny arm towards the nothingness that ruled this dream- place and turned back with her eyebrows scrunched together and a half- open mouthed frown overtaking her small lips- an expression that could only be described with an unbelievably confused awe at my ignorance.

 

This girl had to be a figment of my imagination. There was no way that a real person could be as crazy as to see a hall in an empty room and wonder why I didn’t see it. “I don’t see anything. All I see is space; a great big, endless expanse of a white room.”

 

That expression of awe and confusion spiked again and suddenly disappeared all in a flash. “Oh! That’s right! You can’t see yet! This is the worst part about you new people. You don’t see anything until you hold my hand. Don’t get excited, this is only so you don’t stumble into people like a blind idiot.” She thrust her hand out so quickly, I could’ve sworn she was going to punch me. It took me a little while to be sure that her hand was in fact nice and open and that there wasn’t some blade or needle that would inject a poison in me and kill me and I’d wake up in the middle of my surgery to find myself on a table with a bunch of surgeons looming over me with scalpels and needles in their hands. She held out her hand a little further- clearly exasperated at how I didn’t seem to understand how shaking it would help me “see”. I could see her foot tapping against the floor in an anxious and restless frenzy when she sighed and rolled her eyes for the millionth time since we had met and grabbed me by the wrist and jammed my hand against hers so I would hurry up and shake it.

 

It was very weird. Not only was I shaking hands with an imaginary, too- sassy- for- her- own- good- 7 year old that claimed that this was going to help me “see” a hallway and people that was supposed to take the place of the great white vastness that was surrounding me; but it’s just that no one ever shakes hands anymore- no one but formal, dusty old men who are finally finished discussing business deals between their companies. I shook her hand slightly and as our hands moved, I felt a cold sweeping wave climb up my body to my eyes and then crawl back down to my fingertips.

 

When I looked up, my surroundings had completely changed. I couldn’t quite register it. Even if this was a dream, dreams don’t ever have feelings or change so quickly. Mine don’t; mine are always flowing and calm things where my surroundings change fluidly- not instantly- nothing at all like what just happened. Just a moment ago, I had been in a great big white room- all alone save for this child that couldn’t have been more than 7 years old and had the sass of a hormonal teenager, and now I was in this corridor that came from nowhere- whose every inch was covered in color and throughout its length, all sorts of people walked peacefully –tall and short, light and dark, men and women of all shapes and sizes and colors roamed all over- and each and every one was walking in pairs.

 

The walls were a peach color that reminded me of bridesmaid’s dresses while the black and white marble floors reminded me of a bride and groom at the altar. The walls and floors were harmonious and reminded me of a wedding much more than any other room I had ever stepped in did- and as if it was their wedding song, the clicks that sounded with every stride the people took, were beautiful and full- nothing like the empty, hallow clacking that the follow the patients and the doctors’ footsteps as they wander the hospital. Long blue drapes hung from the walls and swayed with a breeze that did not exist. It felt… nice. It was odd to say that this strip of dream- land felt more like home than my actual house.

 

“If you’re done ‘taking in the sights’ I have to take you to Calliope now.” I shook myself back to ‘reality’ and forced my gaze to fall down on to the kid who’s ever- present scowl had once again returned to her small face. Her arms were crossed and the slap of her tiny foot against the marble floors was like a metronome that counted the milliseconds that it took for us to get to her friend instead of the beat of an annoying song that my third grade music teacher made us play when I was younger- the annoying song that I could not, for the life of me keep up with on my guitar.  
I knelt down close to her face so our eyes could be level with each other and I said, with a condescending smile tugging at my lips, “Look sweetie, you are the figment of my imagination. And I will take in the sights as long as I want to because before too long, I am going to wake up in a hospital bedroom and you would have been long forgotten in less than a week. You got that?” She just glared at me and pointed to a tall man dressed all in white with light hair that fell down to his shoulders in a slightly curling wave and bright green eyes so filled with love and compassion and something else that I couldn’t quite tell what it was. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was an angel, a very lovely angel that was walking toward us. But angels have wings don’t they? I turned to the girl looking for some explanation as to who it was that was walking nearer and nearer as though he were gliding on air instead of walking on the same marble floor that I was standing on. The smirk that she threw in my direction did not help with my confusion. Could he be her father? Suddenly, I felt so guilty. I don’t know why I was being so rude. Usually, I’m a pretty sweet girl- but today was just a bad day. Not everyone can handle being in their very first surgery without being at least a little stressed.

 

“Freddy! Welcome!” He opened his arms as if we were friends from way- back- when. Yet I think I would remember people that were taller than trees and had a face that was sculpted by angels- if he wasn’t one himself.

 

The kid dashed in front of me before the stranger could embrace me, -something that was both a relief and somehow, a disappointment- and was so small, she had to raise her head- so high that I thought it might roll off her back if she raised it even a little bit more- to see his face from up close. I could see a small smile tickle her small pale pink lips as she snapped her arm up and pointed at me, but it instantly faded once the man’s eyes met her own. She furrowed her small brow and whined at the stranger in a voice that was so unlike the usual deeper growl or condescending- sprinkled voice that was nearly song that I almost doubted that it was the same child; it was higher and shrieking, it begged and complained all in one breath. “Calliope, this one’s rude. I demand recompense.” Interrupted the child whose name I still had yet to learn.

 

He stooped down low with one arm resting on his knee and the other hand resting on her shoulder to be face to face with her. “And what kind of recompense were you thinking of, little one?” He asked her as a warm and genuine smile spread across his face- and I swear his eyes lit up like the stars. His eyes were blue and green and every color in between- hardly the colors of the stars, but more like the cosmos themselves. They held so much emotion behind them- wisdom, compassion, love and understanding overflowed from those eyes- if eyes were the windows to the soul, I doubt I would never be able to tear myself away from the view, even if they were draped from me. It was truly beautiful to see such emotion behind eyes- when I have been so accustomed to eyes glazed over with contempt and embarrassment; but I couldn’t help but wonder, if they were supposed to be as close friends as I had guessed, why would he talk to her as if she was some delicate little creature and not the sarcastic and condescending teenager- trapped- in- the- body- of- a- teenager that I had known for the past ten minutes? Would he not tease her endlessly or reprimand her for having such a harsh tongue towards someone she had only just met? No; instead he talked to her as though she were made from the thinnest of glass planes- as though she were a whisper in the night and one harsh word would shatter her and her remains would scatter as they danced on the wind.

 

“I want my body.” Her answer was immediate; her voice was stern and unwavering. She crossed her arms and bit her lower lip to show finality- eyebrows nearly knitted together and small wrinkles took hold of her face and refused to let go- almost as stubborn as their tiny mistress. The stubbornness and the spoiled- like nature of her new mood did not sit easily with me- as it was so eerily alike the tone and posture of someone back home, but those were my reasons. And although prior interaction with the girl ought to have prepared him for this, her reply was not well received by the man, Calliope, the grin from his face suddenly vanished and he looked down at the floor as he was trying to articulate his words so that she wouldn’t be too upset at the obviously disappointing answer. I watched his brows come together and his teeth chew on his bottom lip; I watched her own eyebrows and chin raise in what looked like pride, but her shoulders slacken as they became expectant of the disappointment that was soon to come.

 

Finally after having found the words, he looked up and his eyes were dark with sorrow. He absent- mindedly fiddled with his hands and the cloth of his shirt as he gathered the strength to look her dead in the eye and tell her the troubles of her request. “You know I can’t do anything about that, Vanessa.” So Vanessa is her name. Great, now I know the name of the worst hallucination I have ever experienced. I should write a book about this. I’ll call it “And This Is Why You Should Never Drink Liquids before a Surgery” and underneath it I’ll put a small caption that says “Spoilers: Hallucinations Inside” why would she even need a body anyway? She’s a hallucination- she’s not real!

 

She rolled her lips together until they became a thin line and her eyebrows bent one more time until they became nothing but two concerned twists. Once her lips had returned to her face, and the choked sob she was obviously trying to subdue into the depths of her throat, she lowered her shoulders once more and stated “It’s been years.” Although it sounded calm and rationale, you could hear the small whimper and whine underlining the sentence- pity overcame me and I had no idea of what to do- it was not my affair.

 

“I know, honey. I know.” His own eyebrows mimicked hers and his eyes forced themselves to brighten at least a fraction- for her sake. He patted her on the shoulder and gave her his best impersonation of a reassuring smile and gave her a big hug. It was the kind of hug one gives when they pity someone deeply. When they broke apart, he grasped her by both shoulders and said with a better impersonation of a smile, “How about I teach you how to fly instead? Does that sound ok?” He nudged her shoulder as though it would get her to agree with him and the whole scene that had just unfurled between them could be swept off into the sea and never thought of again.

 

“I already know how to fly” she muttered through a heartfelt sigh; completely broken that her one request was denied her.

 

“Oh but do you know how to fly in reverse?” He chimed with a voice that filled with amusement and he smiled one of those grins that salespeople often give when they want you to buy their merchandise so desperately that their technique boils down to the old classic: Transfer: when they pretend to be happy so you can associate those happy feelings with the product and then buy it from them. Thank you, Ms. Hunt for your useless advertising techniques; you are an English teacher, not a climate change activist or a saleswoman for Macy’s, stop teaching us useless stuff and hurry up and let us read Shakespeare already! …As if she could hear me, I think to myself blatantly.

 

“I- I guess not.” Never had I heard a more disappointed tone in a little girl’s voice before.

 

“Alright,” he sighed, as though he too was broken by his inability to give her what she wanted- despite how much he wanted to. “Now go outside and behave. One more misdemeanor and we’ll have to punish you. No way to talk yourself out of us this time.”

 

A small smile returned to her lips and she shook his hands off her shoulders. “Challenge accepted,” she contested and strode out the door before Calliope could say another word.  
He stared at the door from which she disappeared and he seemed to be lost to the world around us- real or not- and it was an awkward few moments for me until I finally found something to say to fill in the blank air between us. “She’s a mischief- maker?” I asked, unsure of why this guy needed to see me. It was my dream after all; shouldn’t I be busy eating cotton candy off of some tree in the Arctic Tundra or something along those dream- world lines?

 

He sucked in a sharp breath from his nose and shook his head ever so slightly to bring his attention back to me. “Yes. She gets lonely and bored.” Before I could ask him to clarify he simply turned to face me and started again. “All of the people she meets either wake up or walk away. She’s stuck here; out- sleeping the best of them.” The pity and sorrow in his voice were the most obvious things in the world- even if this man hadn’t the most expressionist eyes and voice I had ever seen on a human being; even if he had the voice of a monotone computer, there was no way to conceal the sadness that veiled the sentence with its long- cast and seemingly impenetrable dark shadow. It shadow even descending upon my own frame of mine and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her too, even if I didn’t know what he meant at all. “When I came, she was already 6 months in and had already said goodbye to over half a dozen dream- walkers.” Before I could ask, he interrupted me as he lowered his head once again and shoved his hands down into the pockets of his pants. “A dream- walker is someone who is asleep for a very long time; someone who’s in a coma, and stays in one place for a very long time.” He moved his head warily from side to side as though he wasn’t sure how to say anything else without divulging a secret of a sorts to someone he wasn’t even sure he could trust. Ironic, given that he came to me trying to give me a hug. Yet all doubts of this stranger were pushed aside and locked away as he found the words and looked up at me again. This time, his eyes had become hard and stone- like. Dead- set and sure of what to say. “After some time, their spirit sort of gets tired of being alone and starts wandering other patient’s dreams.”

 

“Are you in a coma too?” I inquired before I could help myself. I was genuinely surprised such a community existed, and even more so that no one ever mentioned it.

 

“No. I’m just always in surgery. I have cancer so I need to get the tumors surgically removed every so often. She-” he pointed in the direction where the little one ran off to “has been in a coma for half her life. I’m the only one she ever gets to see that she’s already met. Everyone else either got better and forgot or just passed on. Most of them forgot her; forgot us all, actually, that’s why you’ve never heard of this kind of thing before.” I saw him chew his lip for a moment and cast his eyes down for a fraction of a second, “You see, when people wake up after being asleep for so long... they- they don’t want to go back anymore. They’d rather stay awake and make memories out there in the real world… but you see, the thing with that is, their new memories come at a cost. That cost is the memory of everyone they met in their sleep- state. I was an exception of course. I sleep longer than I am awake so I come here pretty often.” I watched him chuckle weakly and rub his hand to the back of his neck even though this was not something to chuckle at, “It’s actually hard for me to remember my real life sometimes.” I was speechless. There was nothing I could say. I just wanted to help them so badly. I just didn’t know how. “It’s okay,” he continued, “you’ll forget about us too. So there’s no need to disturb your peaceful slumber with thoughts of trying to help people that cannot be saved.” He looked off to the side for a while- deep in thought. Probably about how much he wishes that they could all wake up and go home. He chewed on his lips again and grimaced in pain about a dozen times, he fidgeted with his hands until they eventually came to rest at the small of his neck and he sighed once more. “You’re probably wondering why I needed to see you.” I nodded slowly and genuinely concerned about the poor tired soul and gingerly awaited him to begin. “Well, you see Freddy…” he swallowed and pain fired up behind those eyes again, “I’m dying. This is the last time I will ever see Vanessa again, and-“ his breathing quickened and he was choking back what I could only assume were sobs, “well, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to help me break a rule.” I tried to argue, but Calliope had this look in his eyes that I couldn’t say no to. This was his dying wish, how could I refuse?

 

He’s sorry about leaving her.

 

I swallowed my pride and I nodded my head. “What can I do?”


	4. Regrets of the Daughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last time Vanessa talked to her mother.

Regrets of the Daughter  
...the last time I spoke to my mother...

 

I’m sitting in a concrete room of an indefinable colour. It might have been white sometime, yet it very well might have been bright pink for all i know- it’s been so battered with scorch marks and brutal impacts over the past few years that I might never know.  
It’s usually called the Hulk- Out room, but I just know it as Punishment Quarters. It’s where the entire house will go to blow off steam if things get too out of hand. Bruce used to sit here and punch the walls until he bled and then sit here for hours and hours just sitting to calm down. Tony came here when he wanted to scorch something and the stuff in his workshop was just too valuable to torch. Thor comes here to play with Mjolnir and Loki comes in here to scream, really. No one else really comes here- they all have their own hideouts to deal with stress. Dad just goes to the shooting range, and Steve goes to the gym. Mom isn’t even around enough for me to know what she does.  
I wouldn’t spend much time here if it was my choice, but my Dad had made a habit out of cuffing me to a chair in here whenever I get too “out of hand” for them.  
I really don’t see why they even try, really. I always manage to pick the locks, and I never listen. I’m not that bad either. I mean, they’re living with the God of Mischief after all, in comparison, I am an angel.  
Both of my hands are handcuffed this time- which is something new- and means that Uncle Phil will be here soon to lecture me and do yet another psychoanalysis on me- not something new at all- I ponder staying here just to humour him for a while, but I decide against it. I take in a deep breath and close my eyes and concentrate- I wait for the familiar cold sensation to take hold of my fingertips before I open my eyes and watch the familiar dull- gold open the locks with serpentine ribbons that swirl and tangle with the cold metal lock.  
At the click, the locks fall and the swirls dissipate into the air, but my fingertips are still glowing with the eerie yellow magic. It’ll go away soon enough, I assure myself. I rub my sore wrists absent- mindedly and count the squares on the ceiling. 6 down and 14 left is the magic panel that opens up to my oasis.  
No one really understands my fascination with the rafters, and neither do I. They’re just mine.  
I pick up the chair and drag it under the square- careful not to let my eyes drift away. I stand up on the base and start lifting the panel away when the door swings open.  
“Not even going to grace me with your presence today, Vanessa?” I turn around and meet the smirking eyes of my Uncle Phil. He’s a tall man with the physical appearance of a social worker or an IRS douchebag, but you come to find that he’s really nice albeit a smart ass. He’s leaning against the doorframe in his signature suit and sunglasses.  
“Places to go, people to see?” I say as if it were a question.  
“I brought you something,” he says as he crosses his arms and side steps away from the door.  
I hold out my hand, expecting him to put whatever it is in my palm, when he shakes his head and says, “You’re going to have to come down from there, for this.” My eyebrows raise in a pitiful look at the foolishness of my uncle- as if I would come down for anything- and I raise the hand that was supposed to receive a small something to wiggle my fingers as a sign of goodbye. The hand is halfway up to the ceiling when I hear the dreaded sounds of heels clicking on the floor.  
I freeze almost immediately and out of the corner of my eye watch a figure in black topped with red push past my uncle and place their hands on her hips.  
“Come down. Now,” she says.  
Oh crap.  
I muster my best glare possible and face the woman that is my mother.  
She’s dressed in a professional black dress and her flaming red hair is tied up with two strands framing her face. Her heels are pointed and tall and her hands are on her hips- with her lips pursed together in a tight frown. “Come. Down. Now,” she repeats.  
“I thought you were supposed to be in Tibet, seducing every Tom, Dick, and Harry trying to bomb the United States,” I say venomously and without any remorse- that is, until I realize that Uncle Phil is taking notes in his psychological profile. My words don’t seem to take any effect on her.  
“I was. But then I received a phone call, saying that my daughter had caused a small war with the Dwarves of Niflheim to break out in the produce section of Ralph’s.”  
“Oh so you’ll shake a leg for Bofur and Filli no problem, but when it comes to a birthday, recital, or anniversary, suddenly, you’re nowhere to be found,” I flinch inwardly when I hear the scratching of the pen against notebook paper- I really need to be more careful...  
“Yes, and now hundreds of people could be dying or dead because my daughter is a brat who cannot understand that I can’t be here all the time playing B.B. Homemaker for her” her eyebrows furrow close together and she speaks in a near snarl, “I never had someone to be there for that kind of crap for me, and look at how I came out! You always have to make everything so complicated, why can’t you just-”  
“Be like you?” I snap. “Because somehow, that doesn’t sound too appealing.” There’s the flinch I was looking for...  
The scratching of the pen continues in a never ending soundtrack to the heartfelt mother- daughter time and, before I could stop it, I continue, ”Here’s the woman who will claim to love someone, but never be there for them. Someone who will put their job before family and will be married to one man for an hour that she’ll be within the area, and then take off the wedding ring and open her legs the second she gets out of earshot- and for what? For her country. Not even Steve will be a whore for America,” she stops. I think I can see her eyes start to tear up, but I don’t believe it for a second. She’s a spy, I tell myself. She’s been trained to play on emotions...  
“Don’t waste my time, mother.” I push the panel and hoist myself up into the rafters.  
No one comes after me. It won’t last for long, unfortunately, they’ll get me by dinnertime, and then they’ll bombard me with questions and insinuations and before too long, I’ll be back in the Punishment Quarters.  
My fingers aren’t just glowing yellow anymore- this time, they give off tiny red sparks that hurt when they pop and touch my skin. I shake my hands, but the radiating colour is still not gone, so instead, I twirl them around and form a small firedog in the dark. The thing is glowing in hundreds of shades of yellow and red streaks line its long tail and black eyes. It snarls and snaps and bares its fangs at me, but I snap my fingers and send it flying across the room- sending it slowly unfurling amidst its flight in the air. I watch the arc of light stand in the dark for only a second, when it starts to shake and collapses and turns back into the wolf- sprite. This one controls his anger more, and slowly moves towards me. I kneel down in front of it and I pat its head, as its colours fade into a paler yellow- almost white- with a blue streak running down its front to the tip of its tail, but his feet are still a blazing yellow.  
We walk along the rafters until we reach my usual spot and I lie down and close my eyes. The wolf- sprite is still there so I let my fingers tangle in its fur for a while, until I could watch him get bored of the act. I sit up and reach for one of my dad’s arrows that I stole about a week ago for a scheme. I figure I could afford to lose one, so I break off the injection- half of the arrow and toss it somewhere into the darkness. The wolf- sprite starts glowing a honey- like shade and lunges after it.  
He comes back with the arrow in his jaws and I will him to drop it before I toss it again and again and again.  
I lose count of how many times I threw it when I lie down, eyes closed, and realize just how long this interval had taken. I open my eyes and look around for the canine of sunlight, when I hear something growl in the dark. I leap to my feet and head for the thunderous sound.  
What I find is the wolf- sprite play- fighting with another light animal that I could only assume was another wolf, but in a greener shade.  
There are a total of three magic wielders in this household, four if you count Thor, but he only uses his sparingly. There is Loki, my sister Freddy, and myself. Freddy has a white magic, and I have yellow, so the only other sorcerer would be...  
“Are you okay?” a silky voice asks from the dark behind me.  
My hands start glowing even brighter as I whisk around to see my uncle floating in mid- air. “Your mother’s home, I would think that you would be happy.”  
“Loki, you of all people would know I haven’t been happy about her homecoming since I was seven. The motherly stuff is what Steve is for, after all.”  
“Despite how much I would like to continue talking about how feminine your uncle has gotten, I really think we should talk about your mother.”  
“Says the man who has more daddy issues than a prostitute.” He cringes and snarls at that retort- his eyes and hands pulsing a powerful hue of green for only a moment, before disappearing into the black. He softens soon enough, and I could see the hurt in his eyes even in the blackness. “I’m- I’m sorry, uncle. I didn’t-”  
My sentence is interrupted by a powerful force thrown at my core and it sends me flying, until I nearly fall through the gaps between the beams. I find myself suspended in mid- air with a yellow ring around each ankle and wrist- keeping me from falling. I barely get time to smile with pride when I get blasted once more with a green cloud of pure force. This time, I find myself dangling between the spaces with only my hands gripping onto the beam to keep me from my fall. A chuckle is heard over my gasps and my uncle appears looming above me like an undertaker- ready to dictate my fate.  
He smiles and bows with one hands outstretched to me and one behind his back- a mocking gesture asking me whether I give up or not. I raise my hand to his and he pulls me up with ease. We stand in front of each other and I watch his mouth open to jest at my all too easy defeat when he gets thrown back with a yellow wave of my own. It doesn’t take him as far as his threw me, but I take his momentary distraction to fall through the gap and land in the hallway of the west wing- nearly two floors lower than where my wolf- sprite and I had played fetch. I listen for a while, expecting to hear another deep chuckle, and hear nothing.  
I stand up and silently start making my way towards my room, when I get surrounded by eight mirror images of my uncle. A surge of energy from me and they all go flying into the wall. The seven doppelgangers all flicker and disappear and the last one is starting to get up from the floor, when I pin him to the wall with more golden- grey rings. “Give up?” I ask with a smirk.  
He coughs and struggles and with a barely audible hoarse voice he says, “You...win this round...Barton” his eyes roll back as if he was suffocating and he goes limp- or mimics it, at least. I roll my eyes and lower every one of the rings.  
“You’re such a drama queen sometimes, uncle.” I start to walk away and I feel a smaller burst of energy on the back of my head.  
“Prince,” he corrects, with his arms crossed on his chest.  
“Princess,” I retort. “You’re Thor’s wife after all...”  
His forehead ends in his palm. Their relationship was hard to explain, and it gives everyone a headache when we try to analyze it. We usually just leave it as they love each other and they’re royal. “Oh Norns, please, let’s not.” We laugh together and wordlessly, he lifts his feet off the ground and pulls me up with him. We end up in the rafters- the sprites now fighting over another arrow that they found lying around. “Nifyier,” Loki waved his hand and the animals were gone. Arrow with them.  
Loki is my mentor. He teaches me everything. He is the one who taught me about magic and continues to train me even today. Some people might think that my choice in mentor is unwise, at best, - living in a house full of Grade- A Superheroes and I choose the ex- supervillain who nearly destroyed two realms to be my guide. He’s not nearly as tormenting as before. In fact, I think the old man has gotten rusty. Maybe the domestic life has made him soft...  
Either way, there’s a new God of Mischief in the realms- and she is me.  
I’m really not that bad. I just like messing things up and seeing how they unfurl. I get bored very easily, and doing good is great and all, but it’s nothing like tearing things down for your own personal gain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if youre reading this fic, then i am so sorry for 1 lack of updates 2 crappy writing 3 non linear writing 4 shit plot 5 crappy writing (because that needed to be said twice, it really did) id make a timeline if anyone asked, but w/e the confusion is half the fun, right? no? okay


	5. A Story To Help You Sleep Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bruce pays a visit to the children

A week before his nieces got sentenced to an indefinite exile in an alternate universe by Odin, Dr. Bruce Banner had been a regular, 5’9’’, 175 pound guy, with an incalculably high IQ, and a giant green monster of enormously brute force, strength, and size, born of exposure to gamma radiation and fostered within his own body, fueled and triggered by the man’s anger- and only harboured at bay due to recreational drugs; after they were tried, though, he changed. At first, the drugs were only used in dire need as Bruce hated everything about drugs, the smell, their erratic nature and their non- reliability, and especially, his high dependency of these toxins that kept him from creating complete and utter chaos just because he stubbed his toe or got a parking ticket, but ever since the trials, his use of the drugs skyrocketed overnight. He took an entire week’s worth in an hour and, within four months after their exile, Bruce had been turned inside out. He was high most of the time and he barely ate, he spoke in short, unintelligible fragments of sentences and was just... gone. One would think that it was him that was wasting away doing time for the Allfather, but no, instead of him, it was a pair of bright young girls that he had watched grow into near- adulthood since they were born, and neither had he wasted away. His hair hadn’t started falling out, he hadn’t lost a single pound even if his meals were insignificant and scarce, his teeth all remained pearly-white, intact, and in his mouth, his skin didn’t look leathery and wither off his skin as if it was slithering away from his skeleton- trying desperately to get away from the sickly poisons he stuck into his own walking corpse. Nothing was wrong with him- his body was in perfect health, which might have been why he tried so desperately to destroy it. But it just wouldn’t. He might impair it for a few hours, but his mind never let him rest. His mind was always alert and completely and painfully aware.

He knew he was ruining the party that was playing out downstairs- or trying to actually, no one was really in the partying mood. He knew that his stomach was trying to expel its’ contents into the toilet bowl, even if there were no contents to expel- there hadn’t been for days. He knew that he couldn’t die, there was always something supernatural and somewhat mystic- in the least romantic sense of the term- there to save him every time he tried killing himself. He knew he was stuck in the senseless cycle of sadistic drug abuse and miserable withdrawals. He knew. So when his nephew, Peter, told him to go talk to someone, he went to go talk to someone.

He woke up early in the morning, before anyone had even woken up yet, took a shower and got dressed. He shaved and he made breakfast for everyone -including himself-, leaving a note saying that he would be back later, and he was on his way. He fingered his watch in the dark as he searched for the button that would transport him off to the kingdom, all the while deciding whether or not to bring something- nearly everyone else had. Then his fingertip found the bulge and he was sent into the heavens in a flash of blue light tinged with greens and purples. It was dark in Asgard. The halls weren’t the blinding bright gold that Bruce had always associated with the place, and instead were dull and as close to grey as gold can get. He walked the grey- gleaming halls and stumbled into their room. He sighed. He straightened his tie and he pulled up a chair, the sun hadn’t yet risen so he was in the dark talking to the dreaming twins. “I never thought it could be so dark- not here, not in Asgard.” He sat with his arms crossed in front of his chest as he leant back in his chair, but then decided that that felt strange, so he sat forward with his shoulders hunched and his legs apart, hands folded in front of him. Everything felt so weird and awkward. He fidgeted some more but gave up eventually, and muttered as he rubbed the back of his neck, “Reminds me of when you guys were young, and I would have to tell you stories to get you to go to sleep,” he smiled in remembrance, and his eyes lit up as he realized how much he missed telling stories to eager, sleepless ears. Then he leaned forward towards Freddy’s bed and whispered, “Did you know that Vanessa was scared of the dark when she was younger, Freddy?” He glanced over at Vanessa’s sleeping body, expecting to hear snide remarks and comebacks or denials and a scowling face- he received none, but he pretended anyway. “Yeah, she was. Scared to death, poor girl. But it really wasn’t her fault, hell, I think that might even be why she doesn’t sleep like a normal person.” He glanced again at Vanessa’s bed and convinced himself to tell them a story. Leaning back in his chair, folding his arms above his head, he began, “Have you ever wondered, Freddy, why your family moved to the mansion? I mean, you probably don’t remember this, but once upon a time, you guys lived in an apartment. You, your sister, your dad, and your mom. All living in this shitty little apartment with no hot water, crumbling walls, bad neighborhood- just, a nightmare, you know? The whole place was caving, but your dad was hell- bent on making it a home.” He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, just thinking about the old “Nest.” “We called it the ‘Nest’ when your dad wasn’t looking, but I really don’t think he cared much. Anyway, it was a present from Tony and Steve- but that’s not important. Anyway, one night- I think it was your... fifth birthday? Yeah, yeah, I think so...” He was rusty- so many years in not having someone to tell a bedtime story to really took it’s toll. “It was a lunar eclipse that night, and I thought that I could take you guys out to the nearest park or something so we could look up at the stars. Well, your dad said no. So I thought that I could go by myself, but, little did I know, that one girl who was as foolishly stubborn as her dad, had decided that she wanted to see a sky full of stars for her birthday.” He looked from one bed to the other with a smirk and asked, “Now who could that girl have been?” He paused, as though he was going to get an answer, until he was forced to answer his own question. “Freddy was the one that wanted to go see the stars, but, like a good girl, she stayed at home and listened to her father. She went to sleep and that was it. Vanessa, on the other hand, forgot to give her sister something for her birthday. So she decided that she was going to make it up to her twin and get her something really, really special. She was going to give her sister a sky full of stars, if it killed her.” He thought about his wording for a moment, and thought to himself how horribly accurate it was. How it very nearly almost happened, but he decided to keep going. “So, as I was loading my telescope into the trunk of my car, a certain stowaway who had already mastered a certain invisibility spell climbed into the back of my trunk, completely undetected. She climbed in and made no sounds, and I, oblivious, closed the trunk with her inside.” He closed his eyes in regret- he should have checked to make sure the girls had been tucked in, but a voice in his head that sounded just like Freddy’s urged him to go on, and so he did. “Now, the problem with her plan was that a car trunk has no air holes, and we were going to be driving for a very long time. She stayed quiet as long as she could, but there was a huge traffic jam on the road. Cars were lined bumper to bumper on the road, like a giant sea of metal. Drivers impatiently shouted at each other, but it didn’t help. No one was able to move. A few minute delay became hours. And as the hours crawled by, the little girl in the trunk soon found it hard to breathe. So she started moving, frantically trying to find a latch to wrench open the trunk and get some air. She looked and she looked, probably causing a ruckus that everyone would have been able to hear, but for some reason, her uncle couldn’t. He heard nothing and she found nothing. The girl was out of air, with no means of escaping. She had already made as much noise as she could, moving metal everywhere and hitting equipment against itself, but no one heard. After some time, she got too tired to keep banging things together and she was definitely too tired to scream. So she didn’t. Her head was too light to scream anyway. She didn’t cry, and she didn’t fight anymore. She was sure that she was going to die, completely forgetting that she knew enough magic to escape the trunk. So, like I said, she decided to accept her fate, and she just fell asleep.” This part of the story was always hard for Bruce, and the next sentence came out slowly and in stunted fragments. “The girl was five years old, and she nearly died in the trunk of her uncle’s car... on a quest to bring the sky back home with her... as a birthday present... for her older sister.” The guilt was welling inside of him again, threatening to take him completely under in a tidal wave of remorse. “Luckily for her, she survived long enough for her uncle to make it past the traffic, pull up to the small edge of wilderness that he chose, and open the trunk. She woke up just before he reached down for his telescope, wondering how it had gotten so broken along the way, and, to salvage her cover, she ducked out of the way of his hand and onto the dirt. He still hadn’t realized she was there, and it looked like she was home free from there on. Taking out a small glass jar from under her jacket, she scurried to the top of a hill, keeping an eye on her uncle the whole while, and raised her hands to the sky, silently begging the stars and the universes and galaxies to detach themselves from the vast expanse of the dark night sky and climb into her jar. Nothing happened. She just stood there with her hands outstretched towards the heavens, waiting for the stars to tumble down and fall into the jar. Her uncle had already unloaded all of his things from the small car and was busy trying to rebuild his telescope when something caught the corner of that little girl’s eye. Something was falling from the sky. Dozens upon dozens of stars with long white tails started hurtling towards the earth. She smiled, thinking that someone in Asgard or some other realm nearer to the stars had heard her and chose to pluck the stars from the sky like fruit ripe for the picking and tossed them down for her to catch. She didn’t know that the falling streaks were something far more sinister. How could she have known? She was only five.” Bruce paused for a moment, deciding whether or not to continue, thinking they might be frightened by the next part of the story- it still scared him to this day. But they’re not five anymore, he thought, and so he chose to power through. “Anyway, she followed the lights- sure as day that they were someone’s gift to her to give to her sister. Before too long though, she followed the lights too far away. She found herself in a clearing, and in the middle of that clearing, she found a hole.” His eyes started glazing over as he thought about what his niece had seen. She probably couldn’t remember it now, it had been locked away a long time ago in the back of her mind with the help of Professor Xavier and his Cerebro machine. It had been a favour asked by him to make her forget, and another favour to make him see what she saw. It became their own personal Pensieve, and Bruce had never regretted taking away all of the too graphic images that had been seared into her all- too- young mind. “And in that hole was a... package, or a sorts. It was round and metallic, like a cannon ball, except it was split right through the middle, its halves gaping open like a Pac- Man sculpture, and it was hollow. The girl peered over the edge, when a firefly- like insect darted in front of her face, and she was too overjoyed to even notice one half of the cannon ball was beginning to move on its own. She believed the light was a star, and she was determined to catch it. She lunged with her jar, and caught it in a single swoop of her short arms. She jammed the lid back on, and stared at the firefly with her nose touching the glass side of the jar, when she noticed the hundreds more lights blinking on the other side of her container. She had hit the jackpot. And, wasting no time, started collecting as many fireflies as she possibly could. Her jar was full before she noticed that she was not alone in the clearing.” Again, he stopped. Wondering if he should just end the story there and talk about the day that he and the rest of the Avengers team were invited to Asgard for the first time and each received a famous Golden Apple of Immortality- thus explaining why no one ever aged, or about how Pepper and Maya came to be a thing, or, hell, if he should tell the story of the day he accidentally hit on Freyr thinking he was Freyja.  
He didn’t even notice the small twitch of Freddy’s hand and the faint frown and whimper Vanessa gave.


	6. Loading...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tony does not deal with grief well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is totally unrelated to the bruce one before it- I just decided it was time I shared these, I mean. they've just been collecting dust in my drive for like... months and months and wow I never thought anyone actually read these I had thought It was only the person I specifically write these for like.. wow.

Tony typed in the final commands to the new software he had been designing, giving a languid sigh when his fingers clicked the last key. This new software was going to help them, he reasoned to himself. It was going to make things right again in the house. No more of the ungodly silence and the maddening feeling of a missing something. He reasoned over and over that, like Jarvis, this this was going to simulate human beings perfectly- it was an AI, after all. That’s what they were supposed to do... be human... or at least, as close to human as a program and a few projections and simulations can get.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was wrong; he knew he was wrong, too. Deep in the pit of his stomach, he understood that he wasn’t as almighty as he would think- there were boundaries to his powers at technology; and giving life to a few strings of code was beyond that limit. His gut and his heart ached in protest against what his hands were doing. They screamed at the left half of the brain for writing the codes and making the software, and they yelled at the right side of the brain for not stopping him. He was at war with himself, but, like with all competitions, only one could actually get what they wanted; and so, a few weeks later, there Tony was, war still waging, but project finally complete. Analysis and numbers versus ethics and emotions; the problem would be solved, sure, but was this really the way to go about answering the predicament? Tony knew deep in his gut the answer was no, but he swallowed it and tried to give his project the benefit of the doubt, and he might have gotten away with it too, had the current up-and-running A.I. not taken every opportunity given to him to voice the humanistic ethical concerns.

“Are you sure you want to do this, sir? I miss them too, but-” The AI was distressed, his automated voice dripping with cautious apprehension. If he had a face, Tony was sure that his eyebrows would be drawn closely together- wrinkling the skin of the forehead- with eyes darting about and lips drawn into a tight frown.

“Shut up, Jarvis.” Tony interrupted, his voice was quick and annoyed. He didn’t need this right now- he might have just found an answer and stupid things like morals and AIs kept getting in his way. No one seemed to understand just how much he needed to do this- right or wrong, he just needed to try.

“Sir, it’s just that-”

“No!” This time, Tony shouted. His hand flew up to keep the other from talking back. His voice grew gruff and low and, despite how aggressive he wanted it to sound, all he felt was sadness. And it showed. The broken depression and longing shone through his sentence like morning sunlight shines through a window. “Just...no. Don’t, okay? I know what I’m doing and it’s your job to follow my commands, not to lecture me on how wrong this is.”

“Y-yes sir.”

Jarvis’ voice had gone reluctant and disappointed, undoubtedly he hoped that Tony would do the right thing and keep from launching it, but instead Tony snapped at his oldest and closest friend. He lowered his voice and ran his fingers through his hair before apologizing.

“I’m sorry Jarvis,”he said, “It’s just that it’s...it’s driving me crazy here. Please just help me launch it.”

Jarvis complied. And a silent humming filled the air and one blue hologram started flickering to life a few feet away. Slowly, the picture started getting better and better until the mirror image of Freddy stood where the hologram once did. She looked exactly the same- even wearing the same clothes she was wearing to the trial and sentencing, if not for her eyes which glowed completely arc- reactor blue, as the software started downloading her tendencies, her words, her actions, and everything that she was, just so it could be replicated by a computer bouncing signals to refracted light.

She was still loading when another blue hologram sprang up, next to her, this one took the form of his other niece, Vanessa. The two holograms stood there for a few minutes, downloading all of the information that Tony had collected over the past few days, until their eyes changed to a more realistic colour than the glowing blue. “Freddy’s” had turned to a deep blue, and “Vanessa’s” had changed to a lighter blue- green, yet neither could replicate the life that was supposed to be there.

They looked...empty, like shells on the shore after their inhabitants had long since crawled away and taken up lodgings in another casing, they had no souls or life in them, they were just...there. And Tony’s gut twisted once again as he realized that it was just as he feared- he couldn’t bring them back.

Tony sure had a weird way of dealing with grief.

The two holograms blinked a few times as they processed all of the data they had been given and tried to guess at the first things they would do as individuals- or, as shadows of individuals- first. “Freddy” smiled a huge and- if Tony were to be honest with himself- somewhat unsettling grin, “Hi Tony!” she said as “Vanessa” crossed her arms and leaned against the table with a wink, “Did you miss us?” she said, mockingly- or as mockingly as the program could mock. “Freddy” ran over to “her” uncle and gave him a ghost of a hug.

“Uh..yeah. Yeah of course I did-” He stuttered as his hands lifted from their sides to ghost- hug the image of his niece. He wanted to feel the fabric of her shirt, he wanted to smell the coconutty shampoo that Steve always bought for them when Clint was too lazy to go grocery shopping- anything to prove that it- that she- was real and had returned to him...but, of course, his hands met nothing and there was no pleasant coconut smell lingering near where the bright red mass of hair was; he couldn’t fool himself. He hadn’t been fooled, and he was nowhere near overjoyed at his success, in fact, he wasn’t even sad or frustrated at his failure. He was just tired. Tired and heartbroken, and that was all that Tony could feel. He knew this was a bad idea from the beginning, but he was just too stubborn to listen to his gut instinct.

“Uncle Tony, man, that was just a formality. Of course you missed me. I’m the irreplaceable motherfucking light of all of your motherfucking peasant lives,” “Vanessa” said with a haughty grin. Irreplaceable... “You don’t have to lie about not missing Freddy, though. I’m the life of the party, and she’s the wet towel peasant.” “Freddy” glared at the one leaning against the table.

“Vanessa-”

“Vanessa” raised her hands in defense and replied, “Sorry dude, I shouldn’t have called you a wet towel... that would be an insult to the towels” she smiled her crooked grin- expecting a laugh, maybe, but all she got was an eyeroll from “Freddy.”

“Not very original, Vanessa. I’m disappointed.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure that Tony over there has had it worse, okay? I mean, imagine, expecting to get himself a great kid, because, you know, he’s being raised by motherfucking Iron Man and Captain America, but ending up with that little shit- otherwise known as Peter- come on, dude. A slightly unoriginal original god of mischief and who it also yet, the altogether most amazing person any of you will ever meet- period- no doubt about it, no use even arguing otherwise because all arguments are invalid as a slightly younger twin sister? Please! I think you got it easy. Am I right, Tony?”

Tony wasn’t even paying attention. The program worked beautifully- everything said and done was completely characteristic of both children, but... when push came to shove... it really was nothing like the girls at all- it was like pirate copies of dvds- they’re cheaper sure, but you don’t get all of the cool bonus features and commentary- instead you have to spend hours looking for the main menu on your remote to change it to your language and put up with some guy coughing and standing up in the middle of the film while the camera holder seems to have an epileptic fit and can’t hold the camera still or work the color balance- they were just cheap replacements of the original.

“Uh- uh yeah, sure. Whatever,”

“You okay, Uncle Tony?” asked “Freddy”, turning towards him with concern, “You don’t seem to be yourself, everything okay?”

“Huh? Oh, no it’s okay.. I’m okay, really. It’s just been a really long day.” Tony ran his hand over his face, “I think I’m just going to go to sleep or something.”

“‘Sleep?’ It’s like 4:00, Tony, the hell do you need to go to sleep for?”

“Vanessa!” “Freddy” glared one more time, but then sighed and turned to the dark- haired man once again, “Umm... okay, sure. Sleep well, I guess?”

“I swear! You older men and your sleeping! Screw that, I always say! Be nocturnal like all of us cool kids- Freddy, you wouldn’t know anything about things like that- but yeah. All the cool shit happens when the sun goes down.”

Tony didn’t even bother to respond- he just walked out the door.

“And good riddance!” she shouted behind him.

He found himself in his room a few hours later- not knowing how or when he got there- just sitting there at the corner of his bed with his face in his hands and his shoes kicked on the other side of the room.

It was a nice room- being decorated by the collaborated efforts of Steve and Pepper, it was bound to be. It was a sweet, watered- down baby blue color with plush cream carpets underneath his feet and a huge bed. It had a large window and two dressers on either side of the bed, a gigantic television, and pictures of the family scattered absolutely everywhere. It was simply elegant and somewhat plain. Who needed to put so much effort in a room where you’re going to be unconscious and/or too busy to notice for most of the time, after all?

Tony never even noticed the sounds of music being interrupted or the hurried footsteps leading up to his room.

He lied down on his back- too exhausted to deal with anyone at the time being- when Clint stormed into his room with his hands twitching for his quiver and his eyes practically thirsting for blood. “Tony! You sick son of a bitch! What did you do!?” he shouted- his voice a gravelly mess of low and high notes as he tried to keep relatively calm. Clint was over to the bed in two long strides and dragged Tony up by the collar from where he lay. “What did you do?” his voice dropped a few octaves as he threatened the only- too- tired genius. “Answer me!” he shook the slightly taller man, and, again, Tony didn’t reply. All he did was sigh and rub his face again.

Clint was looking straight in his eyes. His square jaw kept opening and closing but no words came out and his hands shook underneath Tony’s chin as his eyes burned with fury and drowned in sadness at the same time. “I- I get it, okay? I get it Tony. I miss them so much- like you have no idea. They were my daughters, after all... but- but... projecting them all over the house like that?! Tony. Just- just... NO.” He pushed him away with that last word, and Clint turned his back on Stark as his hands ran through his hair. 

Tony stepped closer to his teammate and tried putting his hand on his shoulder as comfort, “I know, Clint”, he managed to say, before his hands were slapped away and he was met again with the image of a broken Clint Barton.

“No! No you don’t get it! You weren’t their father!” A sniffle and a stray tear escaped the man, and his words started coming out choked and strained. “No one gets it.” He wiped his nose with his sleeve and he paced around the room, “I’m their father...and those things are not my daughters- they’ll never be anything like my girls... my beautiful baby girls...” He paced some more and then made his way into the bathroom with his hands on either side of the sink and his face pointed down. Tears rolled down his cheeks and Tony bore witness because of that damned mirror above the sink. He choked on his words and cried some more, “and then you people go around acting like they’re dead or something... no one does this crap unless they’re in mourning, Tony..” he turned around and he saw how Clint’s eyes had turned red and swollen from the tears they shed, he grimaced and started to shout, “they’re- they’re not dead, do you hear me Tony?! They’re not dead, and they’re not gone! They’re... they’re coming home... they have to.” Clint came over and instead of punching Tony like he should have, or wrung his neck like any sane assassin would have done, he threw his arms around him and clung in desperate need of support. He shook and he cried and neither of them spoke for an especially long amount of time.

It felt like ages before someone spoke.

“I- I need a drink,” said Clint- now no longer forcing unintelligible syllables through gasps and whimpers.

“Yeah. Okay, buddy.” Tony said with one final pat to his back.

The men made their way back into the bedroom where Clint sat on the edge of the bed again, and Tony rummaged through his drawers in search of one of his stronger brews.

Within ten minutes, Clint had gotten drunker than Tony had ever seen him- and that was even including the night that the girls were born and he somehow persuaded Clint to name his firstborn “Fredward.”

“You’re going to have to unplug them, Tony,” said Clint as he raised his possibly third bottle of scotch to his lips, but, in all honesty, both men had stopped counting, there simply was not enough alcohol in the world to compliment Clint’s broken heart right now.

Tony cradled his head for the second time that night with a muffled, “Yeah, yeah. I know, Clint.”

“No, no I mean it Tony. I want them out- out of here. Not saved on like a like a disk or a hardware in like a computer on some remote island off the coast of fucking Peru. I- I want them gone.” Words seemed like a foreign concept to Clint by now- everything he said was slurred and discernable from everything else.

“I’ll do it in the morning, okay? Sound good, buddy?” Tony patted him on the back comfortingly- he did mean to get rid of them sometime, but he at least wanted to give the program half a chance- maybe the others would be a little more embracing of his kind of therapy- Clint was doing wonderfully with his therapeutic drinking after all, and he only got this drunk on happy occasions.

Clint made a noise in his throat that very well could have been a grunt or a purr- you could never really tell with him. And Tony decided to take it as the latter. A drunken purr it is then!

“Yeah.... okay. This is seriously weird now. I’m not even sure if you were approving or humming the song of your people at this point. Get into bed, you overgrown, drunken pigeon”

Clint laughed to himself, “Iron Man, tucking me in bed- all putting all your moves on me.. Hehe, Captain would get jealous..”

Tony stilled his hands for a fraction of a second, suddenly the room had changed from depressed and alcohol- ridden intoxication to excruciatingly awkward “Errr.. no.. no I think I would rather drink piss than sleep with you- no offense, of course.” Tony was scarred for life- the mental image now singed into his brain like a branding.

“And then we could get married and have tin can birdy babies.”

“Get to sleep. You’re too drunk; even for my standards,”

“Okay, okay...” he sighed. “You’re a good friend, Tony” A pat on the cheek served as his ‘thank you’ as Tony helped the smaller man into his own bed. “A real dick, sure, but a pretty good friend too.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just get to sleep.” Tony threw the covers over his friend and stepped out once he heard the sounds of snoring.

He flicked off the lights and made it downstairs- where he found his husband to be waiting for him.

“Steve!” Tony all but ran to the captain and threw his arms around his neck, only to find that Steve was gently removing them. “S-S-Steve?” He didn’t even have to hear the words that Steve wanted to say. He could already hear him yelling, screaming at the top of his lungs about how stupid he had been. Steve was angry- he was sure of it.

But then, when Steve looked him straight in the eyes, there were no typhoons in the blazing blue- there was no imminent storm, there was just hurt.

Steve had raised those girls just as much as their own father had. He had been there when they scraped their knees and when they needed help with their homework (as rare as that had been)- he had been there to tuck them in at night when neither of their parents had been around- they might as well have been his kids too.

“I get why you did it.. and I guess that’s just what makes this harder, Tony” Steve refused to meet his eyes anymore, and his grip completely let go from his wrists- of all the battles he had been in, in all the wars he had fought- within and without himself- this was the battle that left him defeated- a battle, set up by his own teammate, his friend, his lover, his husband, his love.

And there was nothing Tony could do to calm the waters- not this time.

Steve turned around and picked up a duffel bag from a chair that Tony had failed to notice. He started making his way to the elevator and he wasn’t looking back; he was leaving... and Tony’s world was collapsing in his unbroken, unwavering wake.

He stood dumbfounded for a while- shocked that Steve would ever leave him- especially not right now, not when times were so hard and everything depended on them being a family. He rushed at his one last grip on reality- desperate to cling to him and keep him at his side. "No. No, no, no, no, no wait! What are you doing?! Steve!" Tony lunged at the super soldier and gripped his wrist tightly. Steve was the only thing that kept him grounded. Without him, Tony would have no one to make sure he ate or went to sleep, without him, Tony would be left alone to his own drowning thoughts and emotions- without him... Tony would die.

Steve refused to meet his eyes, but at least he stopped walking- for the time being, that is. “What’s going on? You’re leaving? But- but why? I thought everything was going great.”


	7. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its quiet in the avengers mansion and its driving clint insane

He peeks around the corner and fights the nearly immediate and overwhelming urge to cry. He clutches his duffel bag ever more tightly to his chest and shuts his eyes. Slowly, he adjusts his breathing and steps forward- shoes clicking softly and hollow- even his footsteps sound depressed, what without the shuffling of another pair or two feet following closely behind. Everything just feels so...empty.

“H- hey. Hey guys.” Again, he needs to clear his throat before going any further with his moment. In those movies that the girls watch, it always seemed stupid when someone tried talking to another person and that person happened to be in a vegetative state. Their words literally fell on deaf ears. And yet, when it’s him, it just doesn’t seem right to not talk to them.

So he does.

“I brought you guys something,” He pulls out a raggedy old stuffed rabbit and a pink princess blanket from his bag. He gives Vanessa the lilac rabbit that once was blue- the one with the lace bow around his neck that now lay fringed and a bit torn from so many years- and he hands Freddy the plush blanket that too has seen much wear and tear, but doesn’t for a moment stop being softer than cloud silk. The blanket that had kept Freddy safe and warm on cold and stormy nights- the one that she oftentimes took to breakfast when she just didn’t want to get up from bed- that one he carefully tucks in her embrace and onto her cheek- an old comfort from when she was younger. He took Vanessa’s rabbit and tucked it under her arm, and adjusted their pillows and their blankets, as though they were still toddlers who went down for a nap and their favourite stuffed toy fell off the bed again...his little girls.

He starts to choke and he can’t seem to hold back any tear. “I know you guys might be ‘too old for stuffed animals’, but they got lonely without you,” his voice cracks at the beginning of that sentence, and he almost can’t continue. But he can’t stop talking either. He has been suffering so much silence lately, that one more moment of it might drive him insane.

Tony doesn’t blast his music anymore and Steve doesn’t even think about his punching bags or his running shoes. Bruce is on drugs for 98% of the time now- but no one even thinks that its necessary. No one has the strength to be mad anymore. It’s just too quiet. It’s like time has stopped at the mansion, and Clint can’t figure out why the sun continues to rise outside when it can no longer seep through the window and fall on red gleaming hair. There’s no way he’d ever tell Vanessa, but sometimes, when the sun shines through, and her hair catches the light, he can see traces of red at the roots and at the ends. His two little gingers... the sparks of his life.

He watches them breathe for a bit- expecting Freddy to start defending her love for her childhood toy and start clutching it as though her life might be depending on it. And then he waits for Vanessa to start calling him old and refusing to sleep with the rabbit- even as she quietly tucks it even further under her covers.

But nothing happens. They just...breathe. In and out and in and out again. They’re having more luck than him anyway. His breathing starts getting shallow and the tickle of pending tears starts playing with the tip of his nose while his eyes start flooding with shameful tears. He takes a few moments to control himself...but he just can’t.

He starts crying right then and there. Silent tears that one only cries when they feel so alone and so helpless. The kind of tears that no one can control because of the sheer force of them all. Everything starts crashing down on top of him and he can’t breathe anymore.

He buries his face in his hands once he sits down on the chair between the beds. “You know,” He feigns a smile- as small as it is- even as the tears keep pouring before he continues, “I used to have a toy when I was growing up.” He bites his lip- hoping to subdue the tears before anymore can fall- “It was a bird. I called him Stan.” He reaches into his bag once more and pulls out the bird.

Its red with yellow wings and has a purple belly. It’s missing one eye, but it’s velveteen felt is as soft as Freddy’s blanket. “I promised myself I would give him to my firstborn son, and well, that didn’t happen. So uh...” he places Stan near Freddy and shrugs at Vanessa, “She was born first. You’ll get the next one.” No answer.  
He sighs. Will there ever be an answer?


	8. Always Too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Natasha finally accepts her mistakes as a mother

Always Too Late

 

No one would ever doubt that Natasha was a good agent. She was strong, capable, quick to think and hard to catch. It was what she had trained for for her entire life- ever since she was a little girl growing up in the training facilities back in Russia- espionage work was her life, and it was all she knew. So when Barton waltzed into her life ready to fire his arrow at yet another target, but then stopped himself, Natasha was sucked into a world that she had never known. Love, apparently. She had never thought of it, never had the time. Her own first kiss had been when she was 19, as she handcuffed the only doctor in the entire hospital that suspected her intentions, she kissed him goodbye, handcuffed him and then gagged him, and then burned the entire place to the ground around him. Her “boyfriends” had all just been targets or associates of her target that she needed to get close to in order to complete the mission; love was never in the cards- she never figured she would even live long enough to get to fall for someone.

But somehow, it happened. And somehow, she ended up becoming a mother of two twin girls... needless to say, she was beyond scared. Terrified, even- she just didn’t know how to even begin. So, at the very first chance she could, she jumped back into action- immersing herself in her personal shell of simple, dangerous espionage- it was like when Tony threw himself into a frenzy of building suits after New York- for, despite her uncanny ability to blend in, she wasn’t as adaptable as most people would have thought. She ran from the entirely new world and hid. Four years passed before she could come home. Four years of running from domestic life, before she could finally accept her fate as a mother. It wasn’t field work, and most times she even thought that by renouncing her position out there, she would become a relic- something you left at home, a liability, something useless and worn and old you could leave at home and never even bother to think of again if it got stolen or burned, but by the time that she realized she was wrong, she was too late. It was her daughters’ birthday. It was the night of their fifth birthday exactly, when she opened the front door of the ramshackled apartment that Clint and she lived in when they really just did not want to deal with Thor and his brother/ boyfriend/ wife/ husband and the Stark- Rogers. All of the lights were off and the only light emanating from anywhere outside of from Tony’s chest, came from the dozens upon dozens of candles on the one giant Hulk- sized cake that Steve and Tony had spent a fortune on to make sure that they had a nice birthday. “Five is a magical number,” Tony used to say, and so, the whole crummy place had been decorated from head to toe in streamers and everyone wore hats- even Peter, who kind of almost liked the girls back then-, even in the darkness, Natasha saw the decorations lining the place from floors to ceiling and wall to wall, she crept through the door with her two small presents that she got her girls- one copy of the “Sorcerer’s Stone” for Freddy, and a set of paints for Vanessa- they weren’t very expensive presents, but they were what Natasha could bring. She stalked in quietly with a huge grin on her face and the presents tucked behind her back, but when she looked at the scene that played out in front of her, really looked, her heart got broken. Bruce had already gotten the whole set of Harry Potter books for Freddy- complete with movies, and wands- Steve had given Vanessa some of his old things from when he would draw, and she realized.. she was too late. She had been a coward and they had stopped waiting around for her. She was no longer needed. She stayed in the shadows- just watching. And then they blew the candles, and she left before the lights could be turned back on and they would see the woman in the sleek black S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform with the fiery red hair and the silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

She had been too afraid back then, and she was still too scared now- too scared to confess that she had made a huge mistake in waiting too long, too scared to finally take on the role full- time, too scared to turn around and see how useless she had become in her absence. And that was why she kept on working the way she did. Missions were all she had now to make herself useful, but she didn’t enjoy them the way she did before. They were no longer an oasis for her aching soul. She yearned for a place in her own family, but she was too scared and she was too late. Her girls were already teens, and she missed it. It was really very complicated- Natasha’s feelings about home and her place in her family. She knew that she had a home, and she was welcome to go back, any time- except, she wasn’t. When she got there, there wouldn’t be two babies in cradles- anxiously awaiting the return of their mother; there would be two grown women- one of which had grown to despise her for all of the years she missed, as if she didn’t already hate herself for the same reason. And yet, for some reason, home was what got her through the day. Whenever she found herself falling to pieces, she thought about her daughters, her husband, her teammates. She thought about home. She thought about home when she was on missions around the world, when she was tired, when she was interrogating and when she was the one being interrogated too. It was her reason to live each day until the end. Thinking about her family was both the reason that she kept on living- in hopes that she would someday return and make things right-, and yet, at the same time, it was also the very same reason that she kept on running away from it. “A terrible privilege”- her own arc reactor, it would seem.

Thinking back on it, she knows that she was being stupid. She should have just come home a long time ago- the world could carry on without one agent on the field, she was needed at home- she was long overdue. Days turned into weeks, and weeks to months and years- until one year, the universe seemed to completely and thoroughly give up on holding out for her, that was the year Freddy and Vanessa decided to go on a quest in search of her. And that was the year that they were sentenced into an indefinite sleep. Yeah, it’s been an entire year. A whole unbroken year of emptiness- no music blasting down the hallway, no experiments gone bad, no angry outer- realm visitors threatening to claim war on the entire planet because a certain brunette pissed them off; a whole year of nothing, and for some ungodly reason, life continued without them. One year. One year, and it would be the first time she ever visited them by herself. It scared her and it broke her. But somehow, she was able to put on her clothes and walk down to the obscenely golden rooms that housed her unconscious children. “Hey,” she said, no one answered. “I brought you guys something,” no one cheered or snarled, “Look. They’re a little late, but... I figured you might still have use for them,” she pulled out an old copy of a magical book and a collection of colorful acrylics still untouched, no one so much as moved. She put the paints at the foot of the once dark- haired girl’s bed, and she opened the book to the first page, and set it on the table- to be read aloud to them in a moment, but for now, she just sat in a chair, and watched... and waited. Hard to believe only five minutes ago they were about to blow out the candles on their giant cake, and now they lay still as nearly full grown- women. Freddy’s astonishingly red hair started to curl at the tips, so now it was filled with fine waves instead of the straight- as- a- line demeanor that they usually had. She had grown taller, and her face more relaxed- she looked like a lady. Vanessa... was a ginger. She couldn’t dye her hair anymore by herself, and so it was left to grow out of the artificial colouring, and she was... ginger. For so long, she had concealed it, and now, it was defenselessly out in the open for her mother to know- for the world to know if they wanted to, but, for some reason, Natasha decided to not let anyone know she knew; it would be her secret. Her’s and her daughter’s alone. So she reached in her bag and pulled out one final thing. Hair dye; if Vanessa didn’t want her to know, then she would just patiently wait. After all the years the child waited, it was the least the mother could do- just sit there and wait. For no matter what happened, she would not be late to their birthday ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> first fiction.  
> a word of caution:  
> it shall be a very long and winding road, if you so choose to stick around, so take my hand and don't let go- lest you be left lost and alone with no way home.


End file.
